Paul G

By some strange coincidence, I have the same one, but with the nylon housing. Anyway, with regards to grounding the plastic pump, this should clarify things in principle: http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf95512323.pdf If it were me, I'd probably find a more permanent attachment of the ground wire than just spring/alligator clips (like an appropriately sized u-bolt), but that document should get you going.

In the junction box that is attached to the pump there should already be a grounding screw where your ground wire will attach. By code, you'll have to bring a separate ground wire with your power wires (i.e. if your pump is single phase, hot, neutral and ground, or if 3 phase, the 3 hots and a ground) and it has to be grounded at the panel where the power comes from, and nowhere else. If you're using metallic conduit (rigid, IMC, EMT, etc.) then you can use a bonding ring where it transitions into the panel. The ground screw in the motor junction box may or may not be green, but it will be a separate screw (sometimes just an empty, tapped hole) where the ground wire connects. It should be conspicuous as a screw that's actually enclosed within the box and isn't one of the screws that seals the box cover. One more thing, the ground wire must be the same gauge as the power wires. Also, if you're using stranded wire, it's best to use a crimp connector (either fork or ring) to attach the ground wire to the grounding screw.

A cloth wheel on your grinder and white jeweler's rouge. It will give you a mirror finish. It'll take a while but do the trick famously.

I second the cooling tower suggestion. Contact a local HVAC contractor and ask about them...they'll be the experts in that field. To get an idea of what they are, here's a handy picture of various styles: http://www.geo4va.vt.edu/A2/cooling-tower-induced-flow.gif In essence, you're using evaporation to do the cooling for you. However, it's only a small fraction of the cooling water so it's not as if you're pouring it down the drain. As for the actual temperature of your condensing water, I *hope* it's not getting as hot as 200F or it's not going to get the job done. However, if you tell the contractor that you're speaking with that you want to maintain your water at (for the sake of example) 80F, and you know the BTU capacity of your still, he'll be able to quote a size of cooling tower based on worst case (mid-summer) conditions that will maintain that temperature. Also, don't get hung up with the term "radiator." Where you hear about it in the negative is in old stories about moonshiners condensing their alcohol vapors in automobile radiators. They're simply a purpose built heat exchanger...one built with the wrong materials for our industry, but not for cooling engine coolant. You are on the right track, though, with the forced air through a heat exchanger idea. The advantage of the cooling tower vs. the radiator is that the cooling tower employs evaporation where the radiator does not. The evaporative cooling gives you greater cooling capacity for a given size than a closed loop heat exchanger. Depending on how elaborate you want to get (which can be much if you're a geek like me) there can be tons of options to tweak the capacity and/or efficiency of the setup. Combining cooling towers with storage volume, running at night vs. during the day (especially if your electric rate varies throughout the day) and other factors are all valid considerations. If you want me to bore you with more in-depth technical-ese, feel free to ask. Paul

I toured the Clear Creek Distillery in Portland a couple years ago. Apparently they were using red wax and letting it drip in "freeform irregular patterns" and got a nasty cease and desist letter from Maker's Mark. In other words, yes, they're looking. As I recall, it only applied to red wax. Other colors didn't seem to enter MM's radar. FWIW Paul

Any harm in calling the guy on it? Perhaps asking him what in particular he thought about the tee shirt that made it so "world class?" Maybe ask him whether he got anything from the other people he's solicited. Like Sonja mentioned, I find it curious that somebody of "world class" status in the racing field doesn't register with Mr. Google. Conversely, he could just be a harmless letter writer with too much time on his hands who's out to see just how many tee shirts he can accumulate just by asking. Maybe he's trying to win a bet...or lost one

Just let it run. The fermentation creates its own agitation...pretty well, in fact.

If you are distilling, why would you want to add bentonite? That degree of clarification generally isn't necessary pre-distillation.

I believe the obvious answer is: "by distilling it." On the other hand, why would you take a ready to use spirit and go through the expense of redistilling it just to say that you did. To me, the cost of a still and the utilities to operate it seem to be a bit over the top for some labeling/marketing. If your three plate still won't get it "just so" the first go-round, chug through a few batches and redistill the proceeds of those batches...then you have effectively 6 plates. Are these distilleries to whom he sells making vodka, or are they using it as base spirit for such things as gin, absinthe, etc.? There's a long standing soapbox among our members concerning brands that merely repackage GNS but advertise as if they are the ones distilling it. In other words, I don't think that, on a regulatory level, the fact that you distilled it yourself (in any capacity) is required in order to put such verbiage on the label that would lead a consumer to think that you did. It really comes down to integrity. Are *you* comfortable labeling something in a manner that states (or implies) that you distilled it when you didn't? As an example from my own perspective: If I make vodka and say that I distilled it, it would be from the raw materials right up to the final bottling. I wouldn't feel right saying I took the product of somebody else's still and ran it through mine just for the sake of putting on the label that It was distilled by me. [1] If I make gin, I may purchase GNS for base spirit for the sake of cost effectiveness. I can comfortably say that I distilled the gin myself as I'm not claiming that I distilled the base spirit. The final product is sufficiently different from the individual ingredients as to say it's a whole new product altogether...the process by which that was affected was performed by me in my facility, therefore it's (in my estimation) fair to say I distilled it. In contrast to this, if I take GNS and redistill it only to dilute and call it vodka, it can be argued that I've done nothing to substantially change the properties of the ingredients in order to make a new product. Cheers, Paul [1] In my time with Uncle Sam's Yacht Club the Navy, we would load food and supplies onto the boat by hand, passing it person by person from the pier to wherever it was to be stored. There would be the occasional smart-aleck who would casually stand in line and simply touch the box or can as it passed by him so he could claim that he helped out because he at least touched the stores being loaded. I see this as a parallel to redistilling perfectly good GNS just for the sake of saying that it was done in house...albeit with much less effort expended. It's the same net result.

...and of course an item's value may vary depending on whether you're appraising it for collateral or taxes

Warning: Just opinion here. I think it's just off the beaten path enough that you might be able to fudge your numbers. Take into consideration how much YOU might want to pay for that 5 year old used still/fermenter/pump. Considering nominal wear and tear, or even deciding what "nominal" is in this industry (will the bank be able to refute your assertions?) it may be a lot of depreciation or virtually none. Consider the nature of use of each item when considering depreciation. Stills - consider not only wear, but material value (scrap value of copper/stainless) Barrels - depending on use, may be used once or 3-4 times (and sell for $20 per half as garden planters when spent). Tanks and other vessels - perhaps check on some resellers' sites and find comparable items and gauge their cost used versus new and how old they are. As previously mentioned, bottles and such, as inventory/consumables really aren't subject to depreciation. Although stockpiles that are unusable or unsold become a liability vs. an asset. Hope it's some food for thought. Cheers, Paul

Heya Matt, Welcome aboard

Yes

I would be interested.

Archer Daniels Midland According to their interwebs site: Their list of beverage alcohol products

Howdy, stranger

Just for my own personal clarification, why is making more legislation preferable to cleaning up existing? If somebody's in the process of getting their permits, wouldn't it simply add to the workload of both the applicant and the governing body? The general climate appears (at least to this outsider) that what is on the books is confusing enough to both sides. What makes adding more to sift through preferable to cleaning up what's already there...making it more efficient to both sides? As I'm sure it shows, I know nothing of the process that has to be followed in WA, but I am genuinely interested. CA has plenty of red tape for me already, and I don't wish that upon anybody else. Cheers, Paul

Warning, this might come across as pedantic...my advance apologies if it does. Pressure as measured in any vessel, and as referred to by any official, it is technically (though not consciously spoken) differential pressure between the inside of the vessel and atmosphere. To get into engineer-ese, you never have just "psi" but rather: PSIA - Pounds (force) [1] per square inch absolute. This would be the pressure relative to a perfect vacuum. As you mention, atmospheric pressure is 14.696 and that would be in units of psia. PSIG - Pounds (force) per square inch gauge. This would be any pressure as directly compared to atmospheric pressure. PSID - Pounds (force) per square inch differential. This is simply measured between two pressures (except atmospheric where psig applies) to determine a difference. Similarly, when measuring smaller amounts of pressure where psi would read in minute decimal places, other units apply. One familiar unit is inches of mercury (in/hg) used when referring to barometric pressure. Another, for measuring even smaller changes would be inches of water (in/wc - that's water 'column' not water closet). These are typical manometer (fluid in a tube) units. So, with a still being open to atmospheric pressure, it's true that the pressure inside is 14.7 psia, but that's also true on the outside. Therefore the net pressure, psig, is zero. If it were pressurized to, say, 10 psig, the pressure could also be stated as 24.7 psia...but that just gets confusing. So, I guess that's the long way of saying "no, it's not." Of course the discussion also includes debate on whether or not it's considered such by inspection officials. If nothing else, perhaps it might help to clear up some of the calculations I was rambling on about previously. Cheers, Paul [1] To distinguish between the units of pounds that measure mass...those kooky English and their units

Great question...fantastic answers. Thank you all!

I don't know if this is too location specific, but I'd like to know why the State of California has separate permitting; one for brandy and one for all other spirits. Do other states have this distinction? Why should it even matter? Thanks, Paul

For reference, I'm going to toss in a couple terms as I prefer to use them which may not necessarily concur with commonly used industry terms. However, I'll offer some explanation for my rationale as I go along. Bottom line here, if I were to argue with a government inspector it would be as effective as pissing on them and trying to convince them it's raining. However, for the sake of discussion, I contend that I could determine, using nothing more than a ruler, the exact pressure in each part of the column to within 1/100th of a pound [1]. Simply put, the amount of back pressure is generated by the depth of the liquid level in each plate. If a plate is designed such that the liquid level is 1 inch (I'm just tossing numbers out to make the math easy) and the column has 6 plates, then at the boiler, its simply not possible to generate pressure exceeding 6 inches of water (less if you correct for density and temperature). Thus, at 27.7 inches of water per psi, that's around 0.22 psi. If you account for the turbulence of the vapors passing through the liquid at each plate, it would be even less as there's less effective depth to generate back pressure. One more consideration as I re-read this...the cumulative area of the holes in each plate. Taking into consideration how much pressure is required to push a volume of vapor though that area (which I'm not sure really adds up to much but it is quantifiable) would also be added to the back pressure of the plate liquid levels. In the end, I still would predict the pressure to come in well under 1 psi. From an official's standpoint, I can see where they would have an issue with not having a gauge at each point to prove what pressure it is (relief or not). Then again, in the grand scheme of a still's expense, what's the cost of adding a gauge or 6? On the other hand, most custom/home built rigs are pot stills [2] and not column stills and there's no restriction in the vapor path to generate any pressure whatsoever...as (it appears) are the Revenoor and Iberian Copper (oooh, shiny) appear to be. Even so, it's not a difficult thing to add in a pressure relief mechanism, whether it be a precision relief valve or simply a hinged flapper that's held in place by nothing more than gravity (think of the doodads that cover a bulldozer's exhaust pipe). Vacuum can be handled the same way. Either way, as long as there isn't a means of closing off the vapor path from the atmosphere (which IMHO would be a bad idea in the first place) there doesn't really exist a means of generating significant pressure inside a still...nor should there. Personally, I appreciate the devil's advocate style input and hopefully mine is taken in the same vein. I can absolutely relate to that. That's why I prefer to be my own worst critic. Cheers, Paul [1] Of course I'm probably setting myself up for missing something fairly basic that will blow my whole claim and leave me looking pretty foolish. [2] I use "pot still" interchangeably with "alembic" in terms of design in contrast with column/reflux. Where manufacturers like Holstein and others call their multi-plate column rigs pot stills I'll never know. Perhaps they're using that term to distinguish batch stills with continuous (where I'm using "batch" where the boiler has to be drained and refilled each run and continuous is hopefully self explanatory). To-may-to, to-mah-to I guess.

I have to second (third?) the sentiment that your citations of ASME and ICC refer to pressure vessels in the context of steam jacketed stills, not direct fired. The still portion is not a pressure vessel, nor should it EVER be. There are many examples of both Revenoor and similarly designed stills in legal operation around the country. Too many to say that they slipped past an incompetent inspector. Cheers, Paul

Just a quick mental note: (I'll do the math when I have longer to sit still) Consider the cost/energy ratio for what will be accomplished. For example, what's the power rating of an electric boiler (in watts/kilowatts)? Then compare that to a gas boiler with the same capacity. How many BTUs is it rated for? Then find out what the cost per KW-hour is and the cost per therm (100,000 BTUs) that gas is. You could reasonably compare the operating cost per hour and see if one or the other stands out significantly.

Check with Waterloo. I think they can do their standard shapes/colors in case quantities. http://www.waterloocontainer.com/

Of course...not unlike the screen on the top of 151 bottles. Good point.